


casualties

by gamb



Category: Magic: The Gathering (Card Game)
Genre: Character Death, Gen, POV Second Person, War of the Spark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 14:35:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20472653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gamb/pseuds/gamb
Summary: You've never been a fighter, but now you find yourself in a war.(for /r/fanfiction's 2nd Person POV challenge)





	casualties

The sky catches your eye first. It is the color of a week-old bruise, a color that promises hurricanes and hailstones, and the sight of it makes the hair on your arms bristle. Heat lightning criss-crosses the sky, and the odd tinge of mana-fueled color hints that the storm’s origin is not wholly natural.

It is always disorienting, those first few seconds after a planeswalk, and this one was more disorienting than most. You are in a city, cobblestones under your feet, tightly-packed buildings around you. You saw lights, a corruscating pattern like the sun through cut glass, and they were beautiful and you were gone before you even decided to follow them, chasing them, a bass lunging at the flash of a lure. You couldn’t have stopped even if you wanted to, and you didn’t try.

Something is wrong, you realize as your wits return to you. A heaviness in your soul, a weight that feels like dread between your lungs. You wish you hadn’t thought of fish hooked on a line. Something is wrong; it is not just the sky, the lightning, the smell of heated metal, the shouts and screams that you begin to hear once the ringing in your ears subsides. There is a crowd running toward you from up the street. Something primal, something ancient in your soul shrieks _ run away_, and you obey it as you obeyed the lights. Always trust your instincts. Whatever lured you here has nothing to do with you; you can always leave. You have always been able to leave. The sky, the mob, the screams--none of that is your concern.

You try to planeswalk.

You cannot.

_That _is the thing that is wrong. A reordering of reality. You cannot leave. You have always been able to leave.

The screaming crowd reaches you, buffets you like a spring storm, and you turn and run with them, for there is nothing to do but to follow the tide. You crane your neck to look backwards, to see what they are running from, but you’re not quite tall enough to see over the jostle of people. You slow as you look. Someone--a minotaur, what a rare sight!--crashes into you, his horn hooking and tearing your shirt, and you go sprawling. The crush of people does not relent, does not notice you, and you cannot get space to stand. You scream when someone trods on your ankle, you wheeze when another trips over you and their foot thuds into your chest, and you huddle, balling yourself up, waiting for the mob to pass. You cannot leave.

A hand fists in the back of your shirt and hauls you upright. A man; you can barely take in his features before he shoves you away. “Go! Get to shelter!” he commands, and he hefts the sword in his hand and runs--into the mob, which parts before him--before you can say anything. Before you can ask where shelter is, what you must shelter from. You stumble, catch your balance, wince when you test your weight on your ankle. Already the mob has dissipated. You still can’t see what they were fleeing, though you can hear a hint of it. The clash of weapons and a rumble you feel in your chest.

On the ground, trampled by the crowd, is a beached merfolk, dragging himself by his arms across the ground. The merfolk have always been good to your people, and on instinct you run across the street to help him. _ Why would you come here, where there’s no water for you?_ you think, but then--why did _ you _ come here? The lights. The flash of a lure. He must have seen it too. The merfolk was ensnared, same as you, and now he is trapped, same as you. But you, at least, can walk.

You grab the merfolk’s arms and heave him over your back as if he’s a sack of flour. He’s heavier than he appears. His tail drags on the ground and his fins are cut open on the rubble in the street; you feel bad, but you don't think it wise to stop to find a better position. The merfolk murmurs a thank-you in your ear, and he wraps his arm around your torso, bearing some of his own weight so you can have a hand free. Not that you could do much with it--the knife at your belt is for cutting line and shucking oysters, not fighting.

You don’t want to follow the mob. Instead, you jog-walk down an alley perpendicular to the street--you cannot go faster with the weight of the merfolk on your back, with the pain in your ankle--searching for shelter, somewhere to hide. The alley twists and zags. Wet newspapers and other scraps of garbage squelch under your boots. You try a few doors, but they are locked. No one answers when you knock. You are about to put the merfolk down, to take a break to catch your breath and massage your ankle, when you turn a corner and see the end of the alley where it opens onto a broad boulevard, and you can see the full horror of where you’ve arrived.

The plaza is full of fighting; blue, skeleton-like automata in formation fighting against people whose flags you don’t recognize. You’ve never been here before. A swirling mass of aether and mana disgorges yet more automatons, marching in lockstep outwards. It is a slaughter. There is blood, and chaos, and death, and that is all you need to see; you turn around, intending to go back down the alleyway, but something has followed you. Blue figures have cut off the exit. Instead you turn left, hoping you can safely skirt the very edge of the plaza, and you use your free hand to bang on every door you come across.

“Please! Please! Let us in!” you beg at each door, hammering your fist, leaving red smears. Your blood, the merfolk’s blood, mingled together. The doors do not open. You run down the street, terror lending speed to your limbs, sticking close to the wall, banging on every door, trying each latch, all to no avail. A cross street opens and you take it, turning down a new, narrower, blessedly empty street. The automatons have already been this way. There are bodies in the street, and blood, and other things, and you pick your way through, bent under the weight of your charge. The merfolk mumbles something, but you cannot hear it over the thumping of your blood in your head. They have come this way already. Maybe they won’t bother to come this way again.

You try the first door on the left, and the second, and the third. The fourth hangs off its hinges and you consider going in, but some animal fear holds you back. You avoid looking inside. Finally, the fifth door opens, and you cry in delight and collapse forward as it swings inward. You kick it shut behind you and slam the bolt home. You lay the merfolk down, as gently as your tired limbs allow. It is not very gentle at all, but the merfolk does not complain. There is a table in the room, and you upend it and shove it across the door as a barricade, then draw shut the thick, silky drapes on the front windows. Your hands are shaking.

It is dark in the room with the drapes drawn. You could make a magelight, but you dare not. You hold out your arms in front of you and feel a wall and follow it, taking creeping steps so as not to trip. Your eyes adjust to the gloom, and you enter into another room. A washroom, and you laugh in delight and turn on the tap and wash the blood from your hands, then bring cupped handfuls of water to your mouth and drink and drink. You keep laughing. The cold brings you back to yourself--you hadn’t realized how addled you’d gotten, running in a panic.

You fumble around for a cup, for something to bring water to the merfolk, but you find only spare towels. They will serve as bandages; you throw them into the room where you’ve left the merfolk, and cup your hands under the running faucet again. Most of the water drips to the floor before you reach him, but the merfolk greedily licks at what’s left, and you repeat the exercise three or four times before he says that’s enough. With gloom-adjusted eyes you can just see him, the features of his face accentuated enough by the light sneaking through the slit in the drapes to see his expression.

You grab a towel and rip it into strips with your knife. You ask him where he’s bleeding, and wind the bandages around his wounds. His wrist is broken. You've set broken fingers before, and you do your best to straighten and set his wrist. You feel calmer as you do so. You’ve always done better when you had someone to care for. It’s hard to be brave for yourself, but you've always managed to find courage for someone else. Now the merfolk fills you with purpose--you brought him to safety, you brought him water, you bandaged his wounds. Soon you will investigate, and figure out why you are trapped here, why you cannot leave, and you’ll figure out how to escape, and you and the merfolk will leave. You’ve always risen to the challenge before.

You bandage your ankle, examine the purple-red bruise on your ribs. Neither are serious, nothing is broken, though you wish you hadn’t run on that ankle. It will take longer to heal now. You wet the last towel and lay it over the merfolk’s tail so his scales won’t dry out. You and the merfolk talk, idle chit-chat that should seem out-of-place given the situation, but neither of you mind. You invite him to your home, once you both can leave, and tell him about the beautiful waves and the rocky shores and all the fish in the stoney reefs. He tells you of the deep ocean and whales and dolphins. It sounds nice, like your kind of place, and the merfolk smiles at your words and says thank you again and again. You think he hit his head. He might have a concussion.

You do not sleep, but soon the merfolk does, his head falling against your chest. While you feel exhausted, you remain standing guard, or rather, you remain squeezed in the corner of the dark room, the merfolk’s head on your chest and his hand in yours, angled just so so you can see a sliver of sky through the gap in the drapes. The lightning has slowed its frenetic pace, but there’s something _ else _ flying across the sky now, bright balls of light like will ‘o wisps, and you neither know nor want to know what they are.

It is quiet for a long time. You consider whether it is safe to leave, to start searching for answers, but decide that so long as the sky looks like that, like a storm, you’re better off staying indoors. Besides, the merfolk is asleep, and he needs to rest. It’s only just visible in the dark, but the white towels have turned red with his blood.

A voice in your head tells you to come to the guildhall, and though you don’t know what that is, you find you know the way there even though you didn’t a second ago. You think of the lights, and ignore the voice. The merfolk stirs against you, but does not wake.

Hours must pass; you fall asleep, briefly and uncomfortably, and startle awake at a crash outside. You lay the merfolk down, disentangle your fingers from his--he is still asleep, still breathing shallowly--and crouch, your knife held in front of you like a warning. It is not very sharp. You stare at the door until your eyes water, but it does not move. Finally, satisfied that no one is attempting to break in, you peek through the drapes. Blue automatons are running down the street, and you shy away from the window, hoping they didn’t spot you. The door does not move.

There is still a weight in your chest, and you know you cannot planeswalk. You want to go home. How long will you be trapped here?

You are thirsty again, and hungry, and restless, so you explore the house in search of a kitchen. Closing the drapes in each room you pass through, you finally find the kitchen toward the back. There’s a pitcher of something sugary in a chillbox, and the pantry is well-stocked. You grab a tin of crackers and a piece of fruit and cheese. You bring these back to the main room, and nudge the merfolk awake. It takes a long time for him to wake up, and you wish you knew some healing magic, but you don’t. The sugary drink seems to perk him up. The fruit has an astringent taste that neither you nor the merfolk care for, but the cheese is crumbly and rich and the crackers are crisp. It’s not much of a meal, but it’s enough to make you feel awake and alert and whole. You place a few coins in the cheese wrapper and go back to place it on the kitchen table. Given the circumstances, you think the house’s owner will understand. If they’re even still alive.

The merfolk eats little, though he drinks most of the pitcher. It’s hard to gauge his color in the gloom, but you imagine his scales have turned the faded green-grey of the sick. His voice is thinner than it was before and his movements are slow. Something is badly wrong; you see it plainly despite his forced cheer. 

You’re going to have to go back outside. You don’t know this city, but it _ is _ a city. It will have healers, good ones, who can fix whatever mortal injury the merfolk must have sustained in the stampede. All you have to do is find them while avoiding the war raging outside.

The merfolk balks perfunctorily when you explain your plan. “You’ve done so much already.” But he has no power to resist you, and you can hear in his rote refusal that he is secretly glad, just too proud to say so.

You retrieve a cleaver from the kitchen, well-made and heavy and a better weapon than your small knife, and adjust the makeshift bandage on your ankle so you can run. You can’t think of a better way to carry the merfolk than to just heave him across your back as you did before, but you take a blanket from one of the plush chairs and make a kind of sling for his tail. Then you shift the table from the door, arrange the merfolk on your back, and open the door a crack.

There are a few bands of blue automata, arranged in twos and threes, but they are further up the street and do not notice you opening the door. You slip out as silently as you can, given your burden, and slowly follow the blue things at a safe distance, until finally you arrive at another cross street. You go right.

The buildings in this direction grow more opulent, made of crisp, carved white stone instead of bricks, with huge pots filled with trees and vibrant flowers in front of them. The dead bodies in the street say the fighting has already come and passed this way. You step quickly, reading the signs on each building in search of a healer. You pass a bookstore, a few restaurants, a bank, luxury apartments, a food market, clothing stores--the people here must get sick, must get injured. There _ must _ be a healer somewhere, but there isn’t one on this street. You grind your teeth in frustration, in suppressed fear.

You go left down another street, trying to get further away from the plaza, trying to find somewhere where there are people who can help. A lone automaton wanders the street ahead of you, and it hears your step, or the heavy breathing you can’t quite keep silent. Its head turns in your direction. It breaks into a sprint.

You let out a noise of fear, and turn and flee, but it is _ fast _, much faster than you are, even if you hadn’t been weighed down by the merfolk. Its heavy steps get closer and closer until they sound just behind you; the merfolk squirms on your back, slashing at the thing with your knife. The shift in his weight unbalances you. You go sprawling, pitching him over your head. Your palms scrape the ground, leaving bloody trails, and the edge of your forehead smacks the ground hard enough to leave your vision splotched with white. You roll over, hands scrabbling for the cleaver you dropped.

Something grabs your ankle and you kick at it instinctively, are rewarded by a _ snap _ like an old branch breaking. The automaton stands straight, spends a moment examining the stump where you’ve broken its hand from its wrist. Your fingers find the cleaver and you stumble to your feet, brandishing the makeshift weapon. You step back. You don’t think the cleaver will be enough of a threat to make the thing keep its distance, but you need a second to pick up the merfolk again. You won't leave him.

The automaton’s skull-like head tilts sideways as if it’s considering you. Considering whether you truly pose a threat. You reach down, never taking your eyes from the thing, and heave the merfolk up one-handed. He helps, pulling himself up and wrapping his arms around your shoulders, curling his tail out of the way of your feet.

The automaton advances slowly, and you walk backwards as quickly as you can without losing your balance. It moves sideways, trying to get to your offhand side, and you swivel in an attempt to prevent this.

It charges. 

You scream and bring the cleaver down with all the terror-fueled strength you can muster; it hits the top of the thing’s head with a force that makes your hand numb, chipping off a slice of skull before skidding to the side to be embedded in the thing’s shoulder. You try to pull it free, but your numb hand slips from the handle. 

The automaton grabs your throat.

You don’t have time to react, not even time to feel. Death comes in an instant between frantic heartbeats, and while your body screams and gurgles, _ you _ are gone before you can give voice to death. You see yourself wither and crumple. You--your body--falls forward, smashing its face on the pavement, sending the merfolk once again toppling, and you wince reflexively before you are _ gone_, pulled inexorably skyward.

The last thing you see is the blue abomination bursting into flame.

epilogue

There is a merfolk who lives alone in the shallow, warm waters off the coast of Illiac Bay. He is a strange sight. Everyone knows that his people prefer the deep, cold depths of the ocean, but he says, when the townsfolk invariably ask, that the warm water is better for his bones. He is scarred as if he’s been in a fight with a shark, and he moves arthritically, slowly through the water.

The townsfolk call him Old Al. It is not his name, and he was not old when they began to call him that. His true name is difficult for the townsfolk to say, and in any case he can barely remember it nowadays. He is an odd color, a freckled, emerald green, whereas most merfolk are blue or grey, and the townsfolk wonder if he were not shunned by his kind for his abnormality. After all, while merfolk are fine people, they tend to be a superstitious lot.

He cannot really hunt anymore, and he is alone, with no pod to support him. He spends much of his time on the rocky shoreline, pulling himself awkwardly from tide pool to tide pool, snatching crabs and clams and mussels and sea stars, things that can’t outrun his darting hands. Fishermen, of which the town has many, toss him a bit from their catch whenever they see him. They consider him lucky; merfolk are a rarely seen people, but the history between humans and merfolk has always been friendly, and they think it an honor to have one living in their town. He does odd jobs for them sometimes, retrieving things that have fallen to the seafloor, freeing snagged nets and traps, that sort of thing. He weaves nets faster than anyone else in the town, and gives them away when he’s made one. Sometimes he watches children at the beach, keeping them safe so their parents can relax in the sunshine. He never accepts payment.

He goes missing for days at a time, always returning with trinkets and treasures to gift to the townsfolk. Recovered items from shipwrecks, he says. At first, people demurred, for the items are usually of great quality, but he insisted.

“But it is so nice,” they would say. “Surely it would fetch a handsome price at an auction house.”

“I have no use for money. Besides, it is your kind who lost this at sea, and so it should be returned to your kind.”

That answer satisfies most people, and the town has become quite wealthy due to the influx of found gold over the decades.

It does not satisfy everyone, of course, and to those people he gives a different, cryptic answer. He will not explain its meaning.

“I owe a great debt. As I cannot pay it back, I must pay it forward.” 

**Author's Note:**

> forever in our hearts, lime-green viashino


End file.
